Lee Baker, editor, EfficiencyNetwork
Looking round the country, I see general agreement among local highways authorities that they cannot carry on delivering their highways services and local transport schemes in the same way. They know that doing things slightly better is not going to be enough to limit the impact on frontline services. However, I can't see any agreement on how best to transform service delivery.
Reducing duplication by fusing consultancy, construction and client teams is the path that Gloucestershire County Council has chosen, and Buckinghamshire County Council has taken even further by reducing the in-house client to just five staff. But other highway authorities considering organisational overhauls, such as Kent, are rejecting combining design and construction contracts and others, like Ealing, say that simply take services back in-house will slash duplication.
Others favour regional contracts as the way of cutting costs by reducing the cost of procurement and also, in some cases, of managing and providing contracts. The Midlands Highways Alliance blazed the trail, and there are now contracts across the country for providing construction or consultancy to more than one council or public body. Some councils, such as Wirral, think the existence of such regional contracts will allow them to do without individual contracts.
But, again, not every authority is convinced that collaborative contracts are the answer: North Yorkshire, for example, worries that "there is no guarantee that work would be delivered when we wanted it, and the development of constructive relationships may be difficult".
There isn't one model that authorities considering change can simply take out of a draw and implement. Suffolk County Council, the latest authority to announce a need to transform service delivery, lists a number of different new vehicles, including a joint venture, arms-length company, management buy-out, limited company or community interest company.
What these models share is a need to move away from a model where, despite outsourcing, “the council still exercises considerable control over the way in which money is spent," Suffolk says, as it highlights that "in some councils, as much as 50% of the budget can be spent deciding what to do with the other 50%".
What most councils can agree on is that less needs to be spent on deciding how a much smaller pot of money is spent. But whether this is achieved by removing in-house or external management teams, by sharing management with other councils, or even by hiving off the management to some, new vehicle, looks likely to continue.
Looking round the country, I see general agreement among local highways authorities that they cannot carry on delivering their highways services and local transport schemes in the same way. They know that doing things slightly better is not going to be enough to limit the impact on frontline services. However, I can't see any agreement on how best to transform service delivery.
Reducing duplication by fusing consultancy, construction and client teams is the path that Gloucestershire County Council has chosen, and Buckinghamshire County Council has taken even further by reducing the in-house client to just five staff. But other highway authorities considering organisational overhauls, such as Kent, are rejecting combining design and construction contracts and others, like Ealing, say that simply take services back in-house will slash duplication.
Others favour regional contracts as the way of cutting costs by reducing the cost of procurement and also, in some cases, of managing and providing contracts. The Midlands Highways Alliance blazed the trail, and there are now contracts across the country for providing construction or consultancy to more than one council or public body. Some councils, such as Wirral, think the existence of such regional contracts will allow them to do without individual contracts.
But, again, not every authority is convinced that collaborative contracts are the answer: North Yorkshire, for example, worries that "there is no guarantee that work would be delivered when we wanted it, and the development of constructive relationships may be difficult".
There isn't one model that authorities considering change can simply take out of a draw and implement. Suffolk County Council, the latest authority to announce a need to transform service delivery, lists a number of different new vehicles, including a joint venture, arms-length company, management buy-out, limited company or community interest company.
What these models share is a need to move away from a model where, despite outsourcing, “the council still exercises considerable control over the way in which money is spent," Suffolk says, as it highlights that "in some councils, as much as 50% of the budget can be spent deciding what to do with the other 50%".
What most councils can agree on is that less needs to be spent on deciding how a much smaller pot of money is spent. But whether this is achieved by removing in-house or external management teams, by sharing management with other councils, or even by hiving off the management to some, new vehicle, looks likely to continue.
